The Descendants (2011)

Genre: Drama/Comedy

Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Nick Krause, Patricia Hastie

The life of an average American man who suddenly seems to have too much on his hand to control. Matt King (Clooney) is a lawyer based in Hawaii and lives with his wife and two daughters. His relationship with his wife, Elizabeth (Hastie) is strained and friends and family inform him its because there was a lack of excitement. Elizabeth suffers a jet ski accident and goes into a coma. Its only then that Matt's elder daughter Alexandra (Woodley) informs him of her extra-marital affair with an unknown man. Matt is the sole trustee of a family trust that owns a huge chunk of virgin land on one of the islands. Due to a law his trust would expire in seven years and he has no choice but to sell it. Managing his daughters, his wife's accident, strained marriage and the island deal coming together to one average man makes life hard, very hard. Clooney has done a phenomenal piece of acting and rightfully earns the numerous awards he has received for it. The light comedy sprinkled in the first half of the movie and the dramatic second half is the perfect structure for a movie of its kind and is spot-on. The movie is pretty much flawless but suffers from the drawbacks of the genre of the movie. A movie of its kind can get heavy and is slow, attributes that naturally occur and are unavoidable. A definite watch and gives the viewer a lot to reflect upon.

Thumbs up: Fabulous acting, especially Clooney

Thumbs down: Slow and heavy

Rating: 7.7/10